Unregistered Jakarta Voters Can Cast Their Ballots in Runoff

Unregistered but eligible voters will be able to cast their ballots in the Jakarta gubernatorial runoff scheduled for September 20, the General Election Commission (KPU) said on Wednesday.

“KPU has decided that, in the second round, the commission should allow people who were not registered in the first round to vote in the second round,” commission head Husni Kamil Malik said on Wednesday.

The voter list has been a contentious issue throughout the governor’s race, with candidates and clean-election advocates claiming the official list contained tens of thousands of so-called “ghost voters.” Days before the election, the Jakarta General Election Commission excised 21,000 allegedly fraudulent names from the list, bringing the official tally to 6,960,835 eligible voters.

But the Jakarta Population Agency listed the capital’s voter base at 7,545,749 people. On election day, more than a hundred voters complained to the Jakarta Elections Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu Jakarta) that they couldn’t vote in the first round of the election.

Panwaslu Jakarta plans to address voters’ concerns in time for the runoff vote.

“Panwaslu has recommended the commission to add 200 voters to the list,” Ramdansyah, the head of Panwaslu Jakarta, said on Wednesday. “They could not vote in the first round, hopefully they could cast their vote in the second round.”

The additional voters would bring the total voter list to 6,961,035, still well short of the Jakarta Population Agencies tally, but in excess of the 5.6 million electronic identity cards issued by the Home Affairs Ministry before the election. Election law limits voters to mentally fit, non-imprisoned Jakarta residents with a valid ID over the age of 17 and city residents who are younger than 17, but married.

The adjusted voter list still needs to be implemented by the Jakarta KPU.

“We have sent letter to KPU Jakarta informing them about the decision,” Husni said.